Time is winding down, but if you are proactive instead of reactive, it’s not too late to take advantage of a few tax tips that can save you big bucks on your tax return! Any tax professional will tell you that the most beneficial tax preparation won’t take place in April; it begins in December. So, make 2012 less taxing on yourself by getting things together now.

1. Save money by prepaying tax-deductible bills. For example, if you paid your January mortgage in December, you could deduct the January interest payment this year. The same with a property tax bill. If a property tax bill is due in January or February of next year, as a homeowner you may also pay it this month and deduct it from your taxes for 2011.

2. Max out college and retirement contributions. If you have a 401k for yourself or a 529 college savings plan for the kids, make the largest additional deposit you can according to the legal limits and your own financial comfort. Remember though, it would pay to stretch yourself in this area. First of all, the money is not leaving your life; its going into the future to multiply on your behalf. And second, the government is going to give you additional credit for preparing for your own future as well as your childs! Being paid to save can be worth the sacrifice. Read more…

Today on BlackAmericaWeb, Tonyaa Weathersbee writes about the lives of Harry and Harriette Moore, two heroes of the civil rights struggle. You may not know about the Moore family because they were fighting for our freedom long before it was fashionable to do so. Mr and Mrs. Moore were, according to historians, the only husband-wife team to die in our nation’s quest for racial equality. They were killed in an explosion on Christmas day, 1951.

Harry Moore died instantly from the blast, and Harriette died just nine days later. Both of these heroes deserve to be recognized.

The Moores are believed to be the first martyrs in the struggle for civil rights, but I don’t consider this to be the case. The first martyrs in the struggle were the Africans who died on slave ships during the Middle Passage. However, the fact that the Moore family confronted the white power structure in Florida about the ills of lynching makes it clear that their courage deserves a place in our nation’s history books. Read more…